


Food of Love

by jat_sapphire



Category: The Professionals
Genre: Christmas, M/M, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-30
Updated: 2018-12-30
Packaged: 2019-09-25 01:07:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17111582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jat_sapphire/pseuds/jat_sapphire
Summary: They're reminded of "Can't Keep My Eyes Off of You," a song Bodie used to seduce girls with.  Kissing ensues.





	Food of Love

**Author's Note:**

> I intended to post this Christmas Day, but I was too lazy to finish the edits BySlantedLight gave me (Thank you!) or add the amazing ending line she suggested.
> 
> So I thought 12/29 would do.

Bodie rustled the newspaper. "The Four Seasons! Didn't they have a hit just a couple of years ago? When was the last time they were in England?"

"Dunno, don't remember. In Glasgow a year or two ago, weren't they? You like their songs?"

"Birds do. The romantic songs, played 'em on me guitar to make 'em melt."

"You're telling me you needed music to melt a bird? Couldn't slay 'em with your astounding good looks?"

"Well. Sometimes wanted to do summat special, like."

"You're just too good to be true," Doyle sang almost operatically, then stopped. While Bodie had heard his partner sing before, he was surprised at how good Ray sounded now, how much Bodie wanted to hear that rough warm-whiskey voice again.

"No, go on." Bodie spoke quietly, as if Doyle would flee if startled.

"Can't take—" Doyle stopped again. His voice was uncertain now. He coughed, not very convincingly.

"Keep going! Look, I'll turn away," said Bodie, and did. His breath came harder as he waited.

Doyle's voice was still rough and self-conscious, but as he sang it became smoother and warmer: "Can't take my eyes off of you," and he took an audible breath and at least one step closer. "You'd feel like heaven to touch, I want to hold you so much," and now his voice was so fervent that Bodie longed to turn around and take Ray in an unambiguous embrace but felt light, fingertip touches on his upper arms and drew in his breath instead. The moment felt like a skin of ice over hungry water, that fragile, that dangerous.

This he could do: he sang along, skipping the line he never properly remembered and joining in, "I thank God I'm alive, you're just too good to be true," and finishing alone, "Can't take my eyes off of you." Then both of them were silent, breathing, until Bodie did turn and said, "You know I can't, Ray."

Ray's eyes were wide and, Bodie thought, damp. His mouth was a little open and his head tipped back. He might be looking at the ceiling, but Bodie thought not.

In any case, he wanted Ray looking at him, so he put his hands on the rough cheek below the broken bone and on the smoother cheek, and tipped Ray's chin down. Ray made a sound in his throat, a little like a protest, but then gazed with such naked passion that he didn't need to say a word. Bodie stepped close and kissed him. Ray's hands settled at Bodie's waist.

Doyle's skin warmed under Bodie's palms and Doyle's lips softened, parted, and he tasted ...

"God," Bodie whispered, out of breath, then inhaled and said more forcefully, " _God,_ Ray."

"Don't stop," and it was Ray whispering this time.

So Bodie went back to kissing, straining their bodies together as if he meant to tangle their bones. "How ... Why didn't I know that you taste like ... the best kiss ever? The best wassail?"

"Mistletoe and Wine," Ray said.

"No. Bloody hell." He hated that sodding song.

Ray smiled, slowly, his mouth curving wider and then his teeth showing, even the chipped one, and his eyes shone like candles. Like a Yule log.

"Oh." Bodie had to kiss him again. That took a while, slick and hot, Ray's tongue strong and clever against his own. "Oh." Somehow he couldn't move away, his jaw against Ray's temple where the skin was so soft. The smallest movement, and his lips brushed Ray's ear, his tongue finding it a little oily but so sweet. Curls touched his nose and eyelids, soft in a way that set him even more on fire, grappling Ray even closer.

"Don't call me baby," Ray said into Bodie's ear, and that made him shake with laughter as much as lust.

"No, promise." Another kiss, and his hands full of Ray's back and its muscles. "Do love you, though." Ray held him too, now, held him upright, steady in their uncertain world.

"And if it's quite all right?"

"I need you," Bodie said. "To warm the lonely night. I want you, trust in me when I say."

"I wouldn't call me pretty, either."

Bodie leaned back a little, pretended to consider the battered face before him. "Maybe not. You don't need to be. I really can't take my eyes off of you." He put his forehead to Ray's. "You know."

"I do," and Ray lifted his chin, so Bodie put his mouth to the stubble there, to the vein where his heart pounded, to the moving knob in his throat as he swallowed. "You're always watching when I look at you. I feel as if you know when I'm—" a swift, deep breath pushed against Bodie's chest, Ray's arms circling him even closer— "imagining you naked, how all this _skin_ looks," and Ray's hands were clenched in the fabric of Bodie's shirt.

As if Ray had been the only one wanting his eyes, and hands, on Bodie's skin! "Come on, come on," Bodie said. He moved them both a step or three toward the bedroom, then let go and looked at Ray's face. "Let me love you," he began, but Ray frowned.

"No more song lyrics. You're not seducing me for a night."

"No, you're right. But don't blame me that the lyrics say what I want." Bodie still had Ray by one wrist, and he brought it to his mouth, kissed the inside between the tendons. "Stay. Stay. Please."

And Ray's eyes were alight again and he stepped lightly as a dancer into the bedroom.

"True," he said. "It's not _too_ good. It's true."

"Yes," said Bodie, knowing it was a vow as deep as he'd taken when he joined the A Squad—it had never been just a job. He'd always done the most important things without ceremony. And though he hadn't even met Doyle then, their commitment had been to each other from the very first.

"Stay," he repeated, knowing by Ray's expression that he would.

He closed the door behind them, though the flat locks were set. Bodie wanted this separate space, neither his own nor CI5's any longer: it belonged to both of them. Ray stood at the centre of the room, and gazing at him, Bodie felt that a missing piece of a puzzle had been restored, as if some hungry part of himself had been fed.

As if he had his year, his life, his four seasons, finally, exactly where they should be.


End file.
